Sayan Mountains

The Sayan Mountains are two remote mountain ranges, the Western Sayan and Eastern Sayan, which are located in southern Siberia west of the world's deepest lake, Baikal, in Russia on the border with Mongolia. The main feature of the range is Ergaki subrange and nature reserve with many freestanding mountains with flat vertical walls somewhat similar to El Capitan and Half Dome in California. Another place, which makes this range famous, is Krasnoyarsk Pillars (Stolby) National Park. Not least, the range is the source of the Yenisei River, one of the major waterways of Siberia and the seventh largest in the world (4,100 km / 2,547 mi).

The largest ski resort in the Sayan Mountains is Sobolinaya Ski Resort near the city of Baikalsk on the Baikal Lake in Irkutsk Oblast with more than 10 km (6 mi) of slopes and more than 5 ski lifts.

There are 1501 named mountains in the Sayan Mountains. Strelnikova (3,284 m / 10,774 ft) is the highest point. The most prominent (1,530 m / 5,019 ft) mountain is Grandioznii (2,891 m / 9,485 ft), which means "Grand", "Great" or "Epic", because it is the only ultra-peak of the range.